The Sunday Times

SDG702 - Brahms Symphony 1 (21 Sep 2008)

John Eliot Gardiner's label was launched to release his complete live "pilgrimage" through the liturgical cantatas of JSB.  It has rapidly acquired a glowing reputation, thanks to projects such as the forthcoming survey of Brahms symphonies, taken live from concerts, which seeks to put the large-scale works in the context of less familiar Brahms choral music and earlier work that influenced him.  Mendelssohn is the "guest" composer here, with an a cappella Lutheran motet that takes the chorales of Bach and Renaissance composers as a starting point.  The rarities here are the Begräbnisgesang (Burial Song, 1858) and the Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny, 1871) which look forward and back to the Requiem, and underpin Brahm's debt to long-standing choral traditions.  The singing of the Monteverdians is luminous. Hugh Canning